Framing Lives
CUE Teen Collective
May 29 – June 7, 2025
Wed–Sat, 12–6 pm
With works by: Emily Bartels, Erin Enriquez, Zoe George, Casper Harrington, Vivian King, Maya Kobayashi, Anna Ochedowski, Zoe Opdyke, Sophie Rapuano, Loulou Toledano, Mollie Wigler, Finlay Williams, Jessica Xie
Opening Reception
Thursday, May 29th, 5:30–7:30 pm
Framing Lives is the eighth annual exhibition of the CUE Teen Collective. This group show presents works by thirteen young artists who consider how meaning is constructed and where perspective begins. Through painting, drawing, sculpture, textile, photography, video, and mixed media, students trace stories of self and community shaped by memory, place, culture, and personal history. Their works stretch the limits of form while holding space for what is intimate, inherited, and in flux. Rooted in the everyday, Framing Lives invites us to reconfigure the lenses through which we view ourselves and each other.
CUE Teen Collective (CTC) is a free, year-long after-school program for high school students who are passionate about visual culture and interested in exploring careers in the fine arts. Through the program, students investigate various aspects of the contemporary art world. They learn about the field, develop and refine their artmaking and critical thinking skills, and conceptualize and create artwork for a final group exhibition presented at CUE’s gallery space.
Framing Lives is organized by CTC Lead Educator Amanda Adams-Louis with support from CUE’s Gallery Associate, Jasmine Buckley.
About the Artists:
Emily Bartels is a 17-year-old junior at Bard High School Early College Queens, where she is earning both a high school diploma and an associate degree. Born and raised in New York City, Emily has long drawn inspiration from the city's creative energy. She discovered a passion for the visual arts in her sophomore year, with a particular focus on graphite sketching. In addition to leading her school’s literary magazine and co-leading the art club, she has participated in the CIEE Art & Design program in Italy and interned with Curtis + Ginsberg Architects. Through the CUE Teen Collective, Emily is exhibiting her artwork in a professional gallery setting for the first time. She hopes to expand her knowledge in all mediums of art, and plans to pursue a career in the humanities that bridges creative and intellectual work.
Erin Enriquez is a 17-year-old Filipino-American high school student. She is based in Jersey City, New Jersey and attends County Prep High School. Erin works primarily in multimedia and acrylics. Her artwork has been featured in several issues of TeenInk Magazine, as well as in Dear Asian Youth’s Let The Light In zine, the Hudson County Teen Arts Festival, and the Jersey City Birds Art Show. Her current field of study is computer programming, and she aspires to work in architecture or UI/UX. In her free time, Erin enjoys crocheting, coding, and podcasts.
Zoe George was raised in Brooklyn, and spent time in Georgia and Queens before moving back to Brooklyn once again. She knows what it means to adapt to multiple contexts and values building a deep sense of community in the spaces she enters. Zoe attends Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, where she is a junior and also working toward an associate degree. She enjoys cultivating art through fiber crafts, which she has been developing her skills in since 2022, with particular expertise in crochet. Zoe’s interests also include reading, baking, fashion, and volunteering. Her goal is to enter school in fashion journalism, art journalism, or fashion design.
Casper Harrington is a 16-year-old sophomore at The Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, living in Williamsburg during his very early life and now residing in Cobble Hill. At school, he is an interested and ambitious learner who enjoys studying history, art, and English, preferring the creative aspects of the classes. Outside of school, he enjoys exploring the city, spending time with friends, baking, watching TV, and making art. Through his artistic pursuits, he chooses to explore three dimensional creations, particularly through sculpture and textile arts. Casper is focused on refining his artistic skills as he continues to learn about the art world, and hopes to further explore and develop a career in the arts.
Vivian King was born in Manhattan and raised in Queens. She is currently seventeen years old and is a junior at St. John's Prep in Queens. She previously attended public school before transferring in her freshman year. Vivian has always been artistic, and has been drawing since she was two and practicing photography since she was fourteen. In her sophomore year of high school, she attended a photography class at Pratt Institute, where her photographs were presented in a group show in a gallery on campus. She has been in advanced classes since she began at St. John’s, and made Honors Society this year. Vivian’s two primary interests are art and psychology, and her goal is to find a way to incorporate both into her future career.
Maya Kobayashi is a passionate 16-year-old artist from Hoboken, NJ. She’s a Japanese American only child living with her parents and their lovable corgi. As a tenth grader at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights, she takes part in varsity cross country, swim, and softball. Maya is an ambitious student who enjoys taking on challenges while also embracing hobbies such as skiing, baking, and watching movies. Despite being busy, Maya has always spent her free time making art. She expresses herself through dance and visual arts, having grown up using a pencil and paintbrush to create everything from landscapes to still lifes. Recently, she has been exploring new artistic possibilities by going beyond realism and immersing herself in conceptual art. This is her first exhibition, and she hopes to expand her knowledge in the art world and create more work that reflects who she is.
Anna Ochedowski grew up in Queens. She is a 16-year-old high school student at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she is currently majoring in fine arts after transferring from the High School for Enterprise, Business, and Technology. Anna is immersed in the arts, and has an interest in graphite and ink as well as 3D mediums such as ceramics and sculpture. She has taken part in many exhibitions at her school, and has enjoyed participating in the CUE Teen Collective, Anna has always had a curiosity for the natural world, science, and math. She plans to pursue a career in the sciences, but enjoys the arts and appreciates the ability of both art and science to allow for explorations of life beneath the surface.
Zoe Opdyke grew up in Ridgewood, Queens. She is 17 years old and a junior at the Institute for Collaborative Education. Zoe is one of 21 awardees of the New York Public Library’s 2025 National Teen Art Contest. She has participated in several art programs, including painting murals with Groundswell Community Mural Project and contributing to group exhibitions and showcases. She aspires to pursue a career in filmmaking, and has a particular interest in production design. Her artistic practice to date has primarily encompassed drawing, painting, collage, and ceramics. Outside of the art world, she is a member of her school’s soccer team and enjoys cooking, baking, and occasionally playing music.
Sophie Rapuano is a 17-year-old junior attending Stuyvesant High School. She has always been into art and music. For the last three years, Sophie has played bass for her school’s jazz band. Sophie has never received any formal education in fine art. She uses primarily pencil and paper, doodling in her classes or making cards for her parents' birthdays. This year, Sophie has decided to become more involved in art for the first time, and joined the CUE Teen Collective. While developing her works in the program, she decided to focus on strengthening her existing skills in drawing and self-portraiture. In the future, Sophie plans to travel the world.
Loulou Toledano was born in Manhattan, New York, and has been heavily inspired by her childhood in the multicultural neighborhood of the Lower East Side. She is in the 10th grade at The Packer Collegiate Institute, where she has flourished in art classes that have encouraged her interest in the arts. She practices drawing, photography, poetry, and film, hoping to rouse the same passion her dad did in her. Loulou has won an Honorable Mention from Scholastic Art Magazine, and has been recommended for the English Scholars Program by her teacher. She wants to bring light to the dangers of beauty and media, the struggles of mental illness, and the complexities of growing up multi-racial.
Mollie Wigler is a 16-year-old artist born and raised in Queens, and currently studying at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art. She has accomplished many projects and has met many people associated with the art world. In addition to the CUE Teen Collective, she has participated in art programs at The Met, The Drawing Center, The School Art League, and MS Arts Audition Boot Camp. These experiences have heavily informed her growth as an artist and have helped to shaped her art style and character. Mollie has recently become passionate about mixed media and collage, incorporating these mediums into her already colorful and textured works of art. She plans to continue her art studies in college and develop her art-making skills toward a potential career path in the arts.
Finlay Willians is a New York-based painter currently attending LaGuardia High School. As a Scholastic Art and Writing Competition gold medal recipient, his work has been presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His painting ”Woman Suspended Twenty Feet In The Air“ was included in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art following his participation in the Whitney Youth Insights Program. His graphite drawing “Early Objects” will be included in the Vibrante show in Toronto at Little Egg Gallery. Finlay’s body of work represents diverse themes of personal experiences, the human condition, and modern anxieties. He plans to enter the professional art world of after graduating from university with a major in art history.
Xin Yue (Jessica) Xie is a Chinese-American immigrant from Brooklyn, New York. She attends Stuyvesant High School and hails from a family of literaries. In her newest works, she’s shifted from still life in oil paints and watercolor to experimenting with wooden models and mixed media. She aspires to work in architecture, designing sustainable buildings that serve functional purposes while reflecting cultural identity and contributing to their communities' historical narratives—buildings that resonate across generations and become meaningful landmarks. Her participation in the CUE Teen Collective has deepened her relationship with art and broadened her perspective on the methods and concepts used by working artists. She hopes to continue to build her artistic skills and gain historical perspective toward a future in architecture rooted in sustainability, thoughtful design, and a deep understanding of cultural context.
About CUE Teen Collective
CUE Teen Collective (CTC) is a free, year-long after-school program for high school students who are passionate about visual culture and interested in exploring careers in the fine arts. Through the program, students investigate various aspects of the contemporary art world, develop and refine their artmaking and critical thinking skills, and conceptualize and create artwork for a final group exhibition presented at CUE’s gallery space. CTC offers behind-the-scenes access to the New York art world, demystifying career paths in the arts while inspiring students to develop their own personal artistic voices. The program consists of talks with artists and curators, trips to gallery and museum shows, visits to art fairs, hands-on studio sessions, and more. Participants have the opportunity to learn from working arts professionals and build sustainable and rewarding careers of their own in the arts.
Participants form a community with their peers over the course of the academic year, sharing their work with each other and exchanging meaningful feedback on artistic concepts, techniques, and processes as they work together to develop and refine their artistic practices. At the culmination of the program, students present original artwork as part of a group show, for which they collectively decide upon the theme and content. Students also learn how to communicate their work through the development of visual and written materials for the final exhibition, including curatorial statements, artist statements, and artist biographies. Through this process, students learn how to envision, produce, install, and communicate an art exhibition in the same manner as working artists, organizations, and galleries all over the world.
For more information about the CUE Teen Collective, see here and learn how to apply.
Support
CUE Teen Collective is supported through generous contributions from The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The William Talbott Hillman Foundation, and ING Group.
Programmatic support for CUE Art Foundation is provided by Evercore, Inc. and Corina Larkin & Nigel Dawn. Programs are also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and the National Endowment for the Arts.